Virtually all natural gas produced in the U.S. is used as fuel. As such, its intrinsic value lies in its heating value. However, because of the lack of low-cost, reliable instrumentation for measuring energy content or energy flow rate, natural gas traditionally has been bought, sold, and transported on the basis of volume. Gas composition and energy content are currently determined by periodically analyzing sampled gas from the pipeline.
With the advent of deregulation and open access in the gas pipeline industry, large-volume, long-term commodity gas contracts gave way to more small-volume, short-term transportation contracts, taking gas “packages” from many supply and storage fields with widely varying gas qualities. These gas packages lose their identity when mixed in the pipeline, and the purchaser receives whatever is in the pipeline at the time of need.
Without economical means for continuously (real-time or near real-time) measuring the quality of gas entering and exiting the pipeline, neither the supplier nor the end-user can assure quality of the commodity exchange. Also, gas supplies cannot be blended to assure conformity to a quality standard. End-users withdraw gas on the basis of energy needs. If the energy content is low, end-users simply withdraw (and pay for) more gas than anticipated.
Current technology provides two approaches to energy flow rate measurement for natural gas. The first requires a composition assay and a flow rate measurement. The composition assay allows calculating the heating value of the gas, and is also required to calculate selected gas properties (e.g., gas density) needed to determine energy flow rates. The second approach measures gas density and heating value directly, using special instrumentation, and requires no composition assay.